Another great selection was available from Ivy Film (NYC). They rented Paramount cartoons by the Fleischers (Betty Boop, Gabby, silent Koko, Color Classics and Screen Songs), the George Pal Puppetoons, and animation from Famous Studios. Cartoons were rented on a sliding scale based on the size of the audience. A Betty Boop rented in 1974 for $15 if the audience was under 100 people. The top rate was $35 for an audience of over 500 people.

Budget Films, founded in 1969, claimed to be "the biggest privately-owned film archive in the world." They have ended their participation in non-theatrical distribution and now provide stock footage to the industry. Their 1979 catalog is 1 3/4" thick and contains over 800 pages. They rented vintage Hollywood cartoons from $5 - 10 each. Color Godzilla features rented for $32.50 and $34 and John Halas' Animal Farm rented for $37.50. In the 1980s they expanded their line to include a small selection of independent animated shorts. In 1989 they rented Jankovics' Sisyphus for $10, Steve Segal's Red Ball Express for $10, John Hubley's The Hat for $15, Frédéric Back's Crac! for $25 and Richard Condie's The Big Snit for $25. Animal Farm and the color Godzilla features were available for $50 each.

Small Companies Had Great Animation Collections
By the early 1970s there were several companies that specialized in experimental and independently produced films. Probably the most visible of these companies was Pyramid Films in Santa Monica. Their 1974 catalog was a slick 1/2" thick, 240 page volume. It listed films by Jordan Belson, Charles Braverman, George Dunning, Oskar Fischinger, John and Faith Hubley, Caroline Leaf, Norman McLaren, Dan McLaughlin, Frank Mouris, John Whitney, Michael Whitney, Stan Vanderbeek, and other animators. Fischinger's Composition in Blue rented for $10 and sold for $100. The Oscar-winning Frank Film rented for $15 and sold for $150. Pyramid is still in business, but the nature of their business has changed considerably in recent years.

The above sales prices date from before the Hunt family in Texas tried to corner the silver market in the 1980s. They drove the price of silver up to record highs, resulting in Kodak almost doubling the price of film stocks. When the price of silver finally fell, Kodak's prices didn't. When Kodak took all of the silver out of their film stocks, the prices still remained steady and have since gone up. Needless to say, the lab cost of a 16mm print in the 1970s was considerably less than it is today.

Working out of her home in Berkeley, California, Freude Bartlett opened Serious Business in the mid-1970s. The preface to her 1976 catalog said, "We are committed to film as an art form and our collection includes experimental and documentary work... The independent filmmaker is an artist, reflecting and commenting on the world and its meanings." She offered films by Scott Bartlett, Mary Beams, Stephen Beck, Adam Beckett, Robert Breer, Sally Cruikshank, Ed Emshwiller, George Griffin, Suzan Pitt Kraning, Pat O'Neill, Kathy Rose, Stan Vanderbeek and other artists. George Griffin's one-minute long Trickfilm rented for $5 and sold for $35 while his 4 1/2 minute The Club rented for $10 and sold for $100. Pat O'Neill's Saugus Series (18 min.) rented for $25 and sold for $250. The company grew for several years, but went out of business around 1980.

When Serious Business closed many of the animators represented by Freude signed contracts with Ron Epple's Picture Start. The company issued catalog #1 in 1981. It listed animated work by Jane Aaron, Karen Aqua, Skip Battaglia, Robert Breer, John Canemaker, Vince Collins, Sally Cruikshank, Larry Cuba, Paul Demeyer, Geoff Dunbar, David Ehrlich, Paul Glabicki, John and Faith Hubley, Flip Johnson, Norman McLaren, Suzan Pitt, Gary Schwartz, Maureen Selwood, Henry Selick, Stan VanderBeek, and dozens of other artists. Their rental and sales prices were similar to those of Serious Business and the company is no longer in business.

Years ago I asked Sally Cruikshank about her non-theatrical distributors. She said that considering her work was short and that there was not a great demand for animated shorts on television or in theaters before features, she was quite pleased with the size of the checks she had gotten from Serious Business and Picture Start. She indicated the checks were never for enormous sums, but her income from her films was several thousand dollars a year.